(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (“LCD”) is one of the most widely used flat panel displays (“FPD”). A LCD is composed of two display panels on which field generating electrodes are formed, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the two display panels. A voltage is applied to the field generating electrodes to generate an electric field on the liquid crystal layer, the orientation of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer is determined, and the polarization of incident light is controlled through the generated electric field to display images.
Among the LCDs, a vertical alignment (“VA”) mode LCD, which aligns LC molecules such that the long axes of the LC molecules are perpendicular to the panels in the absence of an electric field, is spotlighted because of its relatively high contrast ratio and wide reference viewing angle.
The wide viewing angle of the VA mode LCD can be realized by cutouts in the field-generating electrodes and/or protrusions on the field-generating electrodes. Since the cutouts and the protrusions can determine the tilt directions of the LC molecules, the tilt directions can be distributed in several directions by using the cutouts and the protrusions such that the reference viewing angle is widened.
Also, a technique in which one pixel electrode is divided into two subpixel electrodes, and high and low voltages are respectively applied to the subpixel electrodes to form the different alignment directions of the liquid crystal molecules corresponding to the two subpixel electrodes, thereby improving visibility in right and left viewing angle directions, has been developed.